


Mazel Tov (The Tongue-Tied Mix)

by internationalprincess



Category: West Wing
Genre: Community: remix_redux, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-03-27
Updated: 2005-03-27
Packaged: 2017-10-13 23:08:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/internationalprincess/pseuds/internationalprincess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"There's the tiniest shift in his demeanor. A subtle change in his shoulders. A language it's taken her years to learn to read."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mazel Tov (The Tongue-Tied Mix)

The stone bench she's sitting on is hard beneath her legs, cold seeping through her suit, but she doesn't  
move. She's watching the way the light from inside dances through the stained glass onto the pavement in  
front of her. Dappled color. Reflections of depictions of faith. Beautiful, but too far removed  
to have an impact, to be of any use. Inside, the priest leads the congregation. "We believe in one God,  
the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen."

Toby has a certain predictability about him.

She left Sam to break the news about the debates, and by now he'll be fuming, methodical. Pacing at the back of the church, trying to work out where she is. She's not hiding. Not exactly. But he'll vent as soon as he sees her, and she figures it's better for him to do that away from the general vicinity of the Supreme Court bench. Especially if he throws things.

She's marshaling arguments. She knows she's right, but there'll be sound and fury before he comes to see  
it her way. She knows she's right, and the strength of that conviction gives her a tiny smile, almost  
gives her away.

"Toby..."

"No. Stay there. I'm first looking for something to beat you with..."

"Look..."

"I'm going to do it with my hands..."

He's radiating frustration and pent-up energy, and she keeps her distance but she can't keep the smile from  
creeping across her face.

"Someone should ask him if he's aware taxpayers pay $9,000 this instead of $200,000 that. And somebody  
should ask him what he means by, and somebody should ask him how he plans on...You said that, and you were  
right!"

There's the tiniest shift in his demeanor. A subtle change in his shoulders. A language it's taken her  
years to learn to read. She knows she's right.

"Clear twenty-four hours from the President's schedule. We're going away."

Later, standing to the side of a hungry press corps clamoring at the President on needle exchange, she  
finds herself concentrating on the line of Toby's face. Thinking about the fact that he needs a  
haircut. That it's been so long - too long - since they've been alone together. She thinks it's time that changed.

She goes to look for him later that night for the first time in months. The lamp on his desk is out,  
his office is dark. She tastes disappointment, maybe something even darker. The sheets of her bed feel icy  
when she slides into them alone.

Carol leaves Advance's details for the retreat on her desk the next day, and she trails her finger down the  
lines of the itinerary. Faith, North Carolina.

"Faith," she hears a priest intoning, somewhere in the depths of her memory. "The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." It's taken too long, and she's changed too much in the process, but she begins to feel that maybe (just, maybe) her hope is returning.

So they board the plane to Faith.

She sinks into the soft leather of a seat near the front for take-off, glad to be free of the press for a  
trip, dumping the file she's had tucked under her arm onto the next seat. She can hear him doing ten words  
on foreign policy somewhere behind her, and out of habit she shifts the file as he approaches.

There's a split second of hesitation - a look in his eye that she can't identify - and then he's past her,  
still arguing with Sam. He lowers himself into a seat beside Andi.

They have a long day, but it's productive, and there's something about the atmosphere - pulling together like a team again - that seems like progress. Even Joey's electoral map is not enough to deflate the camp-like feeling. The boys play basketball between sessions, Sam and Larry sing over dinner, Josh is prepared to talk to Amy. It would feel like spring, if the trees weren't turning. It seems everyone's entitled to a new beginning.

The boys have been teasing Toby all day. She's watched him veer around tables to avoid Charlie, block  
his ears with his hands like a petulant child around Sam. She hasn't been paying attention - but it has  
something to do with getting back together with Andi. An idea that gnaws at her in unfamiliar ways. It's a nonsense, of course. Toby's many things, but he's not prone to nostalgia.

Josh continues to goad him, "Why don't you just do your job as a man and get that nice girl pregnant?"

"I did."

With twins.

Suddenly there's blood pounding in her ears, and she casts a brief glance at Josh, because this can't be  
real. This has to just be part of the joke, or something else, anything else. Her tongue is thick,  
and her jaw heavy and she's supposed to say something to Toby. Yet she can't seem to say anything at all.

~

Years before, Andi's hair was shorter, and she was laughing about never changing her name. They were  
outdoors, and the sunlight cast cold shards off the diamond she was extending towards CJ. The air was  
crisp, clear, and CJ was astounded by her own sudden insubstantiality, the feeling that people could walk  
through her if they tried.

So she hugged them each in turn, forced smile fixed firmly in place. Tried to feel solid again, tried to  
feel anything again.

But she couldn't manage words. Tongue-tied.

Marriage. A gravity and a sanctity drummed into her since childhood. Something insurmountable. Final.  
Ego conjungo vos in matrimonium in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen

Inside, she had a thousand things to say, to scream, to cry. Inside, she could hear the priest from her  
childhood say, "The first duty of love is to listen..."

She took another sip of wine, and continued to smile in voiceless wonder.

~

Yesterday. No, months ago. A night that lasted a lifetime. Toby brought her all the way home from New  
York, closed the door behind him and left her weeping on her bed. She was inconsolable. Bereft. Mute with  
horror. She hadn't wanted him near her - something he knew from years of heart aches, heart breaks - and so she shored herself up and kept herself inside. She pushed him away.

She knew he'd wait for her. He always waited.

It's the one thing she has always had faith in.

~

But, as it turns out, Toby has a certain unpredictability about him.

She's flippant with her humor, tries to hide her horror.

"I'm getting hats," she declares, as she scoops papers up, clutches them to her chest like a shield and  
leaves the room. She shuts herself in a bathroom down the hall, flips the lock, leans her head back against the door.

'How long, how long? How long!' her mind is screaming, and she struggles to catch her breath. She thought he was giving her space: to heal, to get over Simon, to come back to him. She thought he was giving her  
space, and what he was actually doing was leaving her.

Ten minutes. An eternity. Her face, she feels, is finally neutral. Neutral is the best she can manage,  
even after lengthy practice in the mirror. She goes back to the conference room.

Joey's hands clasp together and shake, saying even without words the one thing that CJ cannot. Toby looks  
at her (through her) and there's caution. Time is glacial. CJ steps toward him, tries hard for a smile.  
There's suddenly no one but them in room full of people.

She tries to say something, but nothing makes it past the lump in her throat. No words. Nothing she can  
articulate.

A heartbeat later, and the President's whirling in to the room, agents striding to the doors, activity and  
motion and sound. "I swear to God, the winner of this debate's going to be the next President. Anybody want to be on the losing team?"

Toby's still staring at her, imploring her in a language she no longer understands. Struck dumb. It  
seems they're as bad as each other.

She turns to face the podium, as the President calls, "Let's go, Claudia Jean!"

Maybe this is where they run out of things to say, she concludes, letting out the breath she's been holding  
as she picks up notes and straightens her glasses. They've reached the edges of themselves. Run out of  
words.

She can't say, 'congratulations', it seems, and he can't say, 'goodbye'.


End file.
